More Than a Name? Variation in Electoral Mobilisation of Titular and Non-Titular Ethnic Minorities in Russian National Elections

Abstract

Do patterns of electoral mobilisation differ between titular and non-titular ethnic minorities in Vladimir Putin’s Russia? Despite the fact that ‘titular privileging’ has been identified as one of the central causal mechanisms for patronage-based electoral mobilisation in Russia, existing literature has not tested this systematically. This study investigates whether turnout patterns differ between titular and non-titular ethnic minorities in Russia. We leverage unique raion-level electoral and demographic data in a series of multilevel models to analyse whether turnout patterns between these two groups vary in recent Russian legislative elections (2003 and 2011) and presidential contests (2004 and 2012). The empirical findings suggest that electoral turnout is consistently higher in raions with a higher share of titular minorities and that this effect is moderated in unexpected ways by contextual characteristics at the raion and regional levels.